In the Marvel/Disney TV series Vision Quest Paul Bettany plays once again the synthezoid superhero as he attempts to understand who he is by communicating with AI personas embedded in his programming, and goes on the run with a mysterious teenager who may be his reincarnated son. This the final installment in a trilogy that began with WandaVision (2021) costarring Elizabeth Olsen, and continued with Agatha All Along (2024) starring Kathryn Hahn.
Paul Bettany
Q: Do you interpret Vision as a robot who wishes to he a human being?
A: There are a couple of things that you can do with robots really well in storytelling. One is Pinocchio’s wish of being a real boy. And I feel like we’ve done that. The other is the Frankenstein creature asking: “Who am I? Who made me? What am I for? What’s my purpose? Am I good? Am I bad?” I guess that is what replicants are in Blade Runner. So I wanted to do a mashup between those two things, because often Vision, this robot, has more human responses than other characters, and that’s what is lovely about him.
Q: Since the last time you played Vision in 2021, a lot of things changed regarding AI. Do you see Vision as a beacon of what AI could or should become?
A: Marvel, from Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) onwards, had obliquely always offered a positive version of what an AI future could look like and also a really chaotic, psychotic version. The Iron Man suit is a version where the idea is that humans are augmented by AI. Then the Ultron version is where humanity is subjugated or even destroyed or robbed of its agency. But I don’t wish to discuss what the future of AI in our real world might look like.
Q: With AI becoming ever more powerful, what has playing Vision taught you about what makes us human?
A: It’s really odd playing this part and being asked questions about AI and the future of humanity. Because, of course, I am just somebody who dresses up in other people’s clothes for a living. I have no computer science degree, or anything like that. That said, with that caveat, what I’ve been thinking about recently is how efficient AI is, and how inefficient human beings are. And there are so many wonderful things about human beings that come from their inefficiency. I think art is inefficient. I don’t think children become particularly useful until they’re older, and yet, they’re beautiful and extraordinary. So we should all celebrate our inefficiency. I’m a super inefficient person, just ask my wife (Jennifer Connelly).
Q: How would you describe Vision’s attempt to understand who he is and the plot of this series?
A: When we meet Vision, he is having an identity crisis. The show necessarily opens up that there’s a world that’s going on inside Vision’s head, which we represent in this very physical way. But then there is also the world outside. For Vision there is both an internal quest, where we see him wrestle with understanding himself, and coming to terms with himself. And then there is a quest out in the real world, where he’s off to save his son. I wanted the show to have a male energy in a really positive way, because I don’t think there’s enough of that today, and I thought it would be great to have a positive male role model. To that end, Terry Masala came up with the idea of inviting James Spader back as Ultron, so you’ve got grandfather, father, and son, and that was the plan. We decided that the show should be about intergenerational trauma and damage being passed down from generation to generation, like a corrupted file in an OS system. I thought that was a fun an interesting idea.
Q: What is the underlying message of Vision Quest about a better way to connect between fathers and sons?
A: It’s a really simple thing that the show has to say, which is that Vision really begins to understand his own damage and accept who he is and the things that have happened to him, once he really sees his son and listens to his son’s truth. He hears his son and he has been telling him that he’s his son, but he can’t believe it, because that’s impossible as a robot to have a human son. I was thinking about what can I find in my own life to imagine that. I have three children, and my eldest is not mine biologically, but somehow, impossibly, he is absolutely mine. So the message really is that you need to listen to your kids.
Paul Bettany (c) Marvel
Q: What have you learned from playing Vision in this long journey of eleven years from Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) to Vision Quest (2026)?
A: I learned who Vision was for from meeting the fans and hearing what they love about him. I began to realize that the people who were coming up to me were very similar to the person I was when I was young. I was bullied at school, I felt like an outsider. I didn’t know if there was gonna be an adult world in which I would fit in, I was worried that there wouldn’t be a place for me in the grown-up world. That is the reason why Vision is always in a state of change and self-discovery. And in this broad church of entertainment, it’s actually been surprising to find that you can say something that is soothing for those people that feel that way. But the things that I have learned that are of any real use to me as a person outside acting, have been through my wife my children, and my friends, not from playing a superhero. I’ve learned nothing of real import that hasn’t been from my raising children and being married. And that’s the truth.
Watch Vision Quest trailer.
English version of interview posted on Best Movie, Italy
P.S. I had written an interview with Paul Bettany about WandaVision for the first issue of Best Streaming, Italy.